Gedric Thierry
Gedric Thierry served as second Pontifex of the Floating Church, succeeding Veroth Schosen and preceding Clovis. EARLY LIFE Born in the late First Era to Josah Thierry, a renowned cobbler from the outskirts of Nadir's Square, and a mother whose identity was never recorded in any known historical documents. His mother, unfortunately, died in childbirth, leaving Josah to raise a son by himself. Gedric learned the cobbler's trade from his father at an early age, spending long hours crafting shoes and sandals from leather and wood. Gedric traveled frequently with his father to purchase leather, quickly growing accustomed to spending long hours in the overwhelming fumes of Kessel tanneries while Josah haggled for low prices. Josah Thierry died of sudden heart failure in his early fifties, leaving a thirteen-year-old Gedric in charge of the cobbling business. Gedric was on his own, facing competition from rival cobblers seeking to provide services to the residents of Nadir's Square, wondering for the first time how he would keep himself fed. MEETING VEROTH SCHOSEN Although Gedric Thierry surpassed his late father's skill as a cobbler, he did not inherit Josah's knack for running a business. After five years of bitter competition with rival cobblers far more skilled at selling shoes than crafting them, eighteen-year-old Gedric found himself eating one meal per day if lucky, sleeping every other night, weeks away from losing his last remaining schmeckels. After contemplating suicide, Gedric knew a change was needed if he was to survive. He did what most would do in those circumstances - close the business and venture to Low Sargeroth in search of spider eyes. His search for psychoactive drugs would prove fruitless. Whenever Gedric asked where he could find some spider eyes, without fail every Low Sargerithian within earshot would heckle him mercilessly with obscenities and misdirection. Eventually Gedric made his way to the Spider Pit, where he asked the bartender for spider eyes. Unfortunately, this revealed to everyone that he'd just entered the Spider Pit without any spider eyes. The Low Sargerithians frequenting the bar promptly tossed Gedric outside into the mud. In a puddle of grimy Low Sargeroth muck, Gedric Thierry encountered Veroth Schosen, a destitute middle-aged lumber worker from Cliffside. Veroth, by coincidence, had just been thrown out of the Spider Pit for the very same reason. FLOATISM ARRIVES Gedric was invited by Veroth to live with him in lower Cliffside. The arrangement was temporary, providing Gedric with shelter until he could get back on his feet. For his part, Veroth saw potential in Gedric to make a decent woodcutter, contemplating the possibility of putting together a new crew. Woodcutting, unfortunately, was a very dangerous occupation before the unionization and birth of the Woodcutters Guild. With dozens of individual crews competing to fill hefty quotas, often the easier route was simply to kill rival crews and take their wood. Veroth would need several able-bodied fighting men to stand a chance, and Gedric was the best so far he'd found. That particular day, however, providence was on the side of these hapless two. Veroth brought Gedric to lower Cliffside only to discover an illegal signpost newly erected right next to his front door, encouraging readers to look inward, discover that which fetters them to the earth, and Float above those fetters. This sign was one of many put up by Brother Zwickel, newly arrived from the wilderness beyond the city walls. Though Zwickel's messages were rather simple, to most low-born Sargerithians the self-styled monk's ideas were new music never before heard. Veroth in particular resonated greatly with Zwickel's ideas, going so far as to send a message to the newly-constructed Floating Sanctuary requesting Zwickel meet with him and discuss his ideas in greater detail. Zwickel traveled immediately to Cliffside and met with Veroth, much to the woodcutter's surprise. Gedric stayed quiet and allowed the older men to speak, though some of the ideas discussed did pique his curiosity. Although Gedric was not fully convinced by Zwickel's teaching, his curiosity egged him on to find out more. When Veroth opted to leave Cliffside and live within the Floating Sanctuary as an acolyte, Gedric chose to follow him. On a more practical level, with Veroth giving up his Cliffside home, Gedric saw little desire in returning to Low Sargeroth for the remainder of his life. For better or for worse, his fate was now entwined with this new spiritual movement. LIFE WITH ZWICKEL Life as an acolyte of Brother Zwickel was kinder to Gedric than life as a cobbler. The Floating Granary, bristling with wheat, maintained a steady outflow of wholesome bread. Rarely did Gedric go hungry. Although his stomach was satisfied to a degree never before experienced, Gedric remained spiritually ravenous. Floatism resonated with the young ex-cobbler insofar as its promise of liberation from the suffering of life. Gedric had suffered through his fair share and was ready to move on. Still, it was not long before he began to feel dissatisfied with Zwickel's mission. It became apparent early on to Gedric that Brother Zwickel seemed far more interested in spreading his ideas around than providing physical aid and comfort to the needy. When he voiced his concerns to Zwickel, the teacher merely suggested he float above dissatisfaction, relax his expectations, and perhaps re-examine his personal definition of what it means to help others. FIRST DISCORD Hundreds of weary souls circulated through the Floating Sanctuary over the next two years, seeking Brother Zwickel's counsel. Gedric loved serving these people, washing the dirt, sand, and stink from their feet, treating them as actual people. As Zwickel grew more reclusive from the word-of-mouth generated public exposure, Gedric's patience reached and surpassed its limit in the infamous Moot which later would be named the First Discord. While in Moot, Gedric resolved to challenge Zwickel in front of all the acolytes for not doing more to empower Sargeroth's poor. The following morning, Zwickel was gone. A note left in his bed bid his acolytes farewell, sharing his decision to embark on a sabbatical and informing them they were no longer acolytes. "It is wholly your choice whether this Sanctuary crumbles or continues, whether Floatism spreads or subsides," Zwickel's note concluded. FLOATING CHURCH ESTABLISHED Soon after Zwickel's departure, the former acolytes decided they needed to redefine themselves and evolve how they shared Floatism with Sargeroth if Zwickel's teachings were to have any hope of surviving. In order to bring these changes about, some form of leader was needed. The former acolytes, numbering at the time around twenty, held an impromptu election to choose a leader from amongst themselves. Veroth Schosen carried the vote with an overwhelming majority. He faced virtually no opposition - none of the former acolytes truly desired to attempt to fill the void left by Zwickel's absence. Veroth accepted the election's outcome with reluctance. Gedric urged his newly-empowered friend to take more of a hands-on approach towards alleviating the dismal living conditions of Sargeroth's lower classes. Pontifex Veroth certainly welcomed the advice, though even he did not quite help the lower classes nearly to the extent desired by Gedric. Low Sargeroth grew filthier and poorer each year, yet the rest of Sargeroth seemed content to ignore it. Under the leadership of Pontifex Veroth, the acolytes sent occasional missions to the slum with food, medical supplies, clothing, and shoes. Those sent on these missions, however, were often subjected to the devilish antics of Low Sargeroth's residents. Often the clothing would be used as toilet paper, shoes converted to spider eye pouches, food immediately gobbled up within seconds of being distributed. When it was discovered the clerics had no spider eyes to give, Low Sargerithians would usually pelt them with mud and defecation. Unsurprisingly, Pontifex Veroth gradually abandoned the effort to revitalize Low Sargeroth, focusing instead on cementing Floatism's legacy for generations to come. In order to establish firm foundations for Floatism as a religious organization, Veroth first required legal recognition by the Sargerithian government. In order to achieve this, Floatism needed to expand and eventually generate revenue, and so Pontifex Veroth shifted focus towards recruitment. He partitioned Sargeroth into multiple parishes, each parish operating under the leadership of a Cleric responsible for sharing Floatism with the locals. The creation of this new organizational structure marked the birth of the Floating Church. LOW SARGEROTH Although Gedric disagreed with Veroth's priorities, he nevertheless maintained a good relationship with the Pontifex over the next forty years. Veroth offered Gedric the opportunity to become Cleric of Old Sargeroth, but Gedric declined, preferring instead to be named Cleric of Low Sargeroth - considered by his fellow Floatists to be a joke position more than anything else. Knowing how appallingly it would be treated if built, Gedric never constructed a sanctuary in Low Sargeroth, preferring instead to live in a simple domicile at the edge of the district. From there, he spent his days and years among the denizens of Low Sargeroth, approaching his mission very differently from his predecessor. Unlike Zwickel or Schosen, Gedric rarely bothered teaching the precepts of Floatism, knowing in advance that any effort to impress philosophy upon the Low Sargerithians would likely result in a hail of verbal abuse and thrown feces. Instead, Gedric focused on teaching the locals how to clean their water, how to properly dispose of their waste, and even how to cobble rudimentary shoes. Spiritually-themed meetings were held in his home, reserved only for those rare contemplative Low Sargerithians who expressed interest in learning the motivations behind Gedric's actions. DIVISION WAR As a member of the Church, Gedric played no direct role in the conflict known as the Division War, but he would prove indispensable during the aftermath. Within the space of a week, the Blumen family was forced into exile by Kessel and Gloran forces working in concert, leaving behind a bloody swathe of destruction from which Sargeroth's recovery would take decades. The city's food supply was left in ruins, and the streets were clogged with wounded. While the Floating Church had successfully navigated the conflict as a neutral entity, Gedric knew there was much work to be done towards healing the war's echoes. He implored Veroth to act, and the Pontifex heeded his advice, sending every available member of the clergy into the city to help transport wounded people to the Sargeroth Hospital. The war, though bloody, was brief, and before long Gedric found himself in Low Sargeroth once more, back to the old routines. RISE TO PONTIFEX With the death of Veroth Schosen after a forty-year tenure came the necessity to choose a new Pontifex. While Veroth Schosen ascended to the position of Pontifex through a unanimous agreement, Gedric Thierry would find his ascension challenged by Clovis, Cleric of the Light District. Neither contender opted to withdraw their name in favor of the other, and thus it was decided that whichever contender garnered a majority of votes would ascend. A young man of 22 years, with ambition perceived by many to be unfitting for holy office, Clovis had already made his mark on Sargerithian history as the youngest individual ever to become a Cleric at the age of 18. His charismatic personality abraded greatly with the older Clerics, those humble few who remained from the days of Zwickel. Despite this, Veroth had kept Clovis close, recognizing an entrepreneurial hunger in the young Cleric which would likely bring great prosperity to the Floating Church, the coffers of which were empty more often than not, reliant solely upon donations from the devout nobility. Together, Veroth Schosen and Clovis had plans to establish a new branch of the Church on the business front, starting with an apothecary, but Veroth would pass away before any of these plans had a chance to come to fruition. While Clovis managed to curry favor with the two Clerics close to his own age, the elder Clerics saw him as little more than an impatient upstart with a vulgar personality. By three votes, Gedric would claim an easy majority to become the Second Pontifex of the Floating Church. PONTIFEX With Gedric Thierry's ascension to Pontifex came the need for a new Cleric of Low Sargeroth. The position would be given to the elderly Cleric Gallis Vare, formerly the Cleric of Old Sargeroth, who sought to spend the final years of his life in service to the people of Sargeroth's most neglected district. The vacancy left in Old Sargeroth by Gallis Vare's transfer would quickly be filled by Gedric's elevation of Brother Schyal as the new Cleric. EDICT OF ACTIVE DEVOTION In the first year of his tenure, Gedric issued the Edict of Active Devotion, requiring all acolytes to learn a trade before being allowed to joined the Floating Order as fully anointed members of the clergy. By the end of Veroth Schosen's tenure, the Church experienced an influx of new acolytes with no marketable skills, having simply joined the Church to escape hungry lives in the city. While the passing of the Edict of Active Devotion was supported by older members of the clergy, Gedric would find himself frequently defending his Edict in Moot to the younger Clerics, led in debate by an increasingly outspoken Clovis. Tensions between Gedric and Clovis outlived the contentious pontifical election, and would bring a dissonant tone to their relationship for the remainder of the former's tenure as Pontifex. This first year would prove tense and charged, as Gedric faced mounting pressure in Moot from a vocally critical Clovis to attend to the Church's disastrous financial situation. The Edict of Active Devotion was strongly opposed by Clovis, who believed the Church, in order to survive, should establish its own businesses, self-employ, and generate revenue. Although Clovis presented convincing arguments in several Moot debates as to the potential virtues of entrepreneurialism, Gedric remained steadfastly opposed. Gedric believed the pursuit of riches to be a poison for the soul, one which would certainly corrupt the values of the Church over time, and consequently refused to consider transforming the Church into what he believed would simply be another business. GALLIS VARE INCIDENT Gallis Vare enjoyed popularity among the locals for his seven-year tenure as Cleric of Low Sargeroth. Although Gallis was not quite so hands-on as his predecessor, he did strive to ensure the sanitary practices instilled by Gedric were continued, though a bloodthirsty new generation of young Low Sargerithian children would prove too much for Gallis to handle. On several separate occasions, Gallis complained in writing to Pontifex Gedric about young Sargerithian children pelting him with rocks and feces. Gedric discreetly suggested Gallis carry a personal supply of spider eyes. The children, the Pontifex claimed, would readily drop their stones and feces for a plump and juicy eye. Gallis Vare did not follow Gedric's advice, holding a grimmer view of spider eyes than the Pontifex, viewing the drug as the primary cause of violence in the chaotic district. Consequently, when Gallis was harassed in the seventh year of his tenure by a particularly tenacious group of local children, he had no way to deflect their wicked merrymaking. After a prolonged barrage of the usual stones and feces, the Cleric was knocked unconscious by a well-thrown brick, sending him splashing into the Pissin' Pond. By the time Gallis Vare's body was discovered, the Sargeroth Guard observed that it had been floating neglected in the Pissin' Pond for at least three days. Floatists throughout Greater Sargeroth were unhappy, but the overall reaction to Gallis's murder was lukewarm. Most agreed that living in Low Sargeroth was unwise, and that Gallis Vare had invited his own demise. The identity of the child who threw the fatal brick was never discovered by the authorities. SECOND DISCORD During the Moot called in the wake of Gallis Vare's murder, notoriously referred to as the Second Discord, simmering tensions between Gedric and Clovis reached their boiling point. Protests erupted among the younger Clerics upon Gedric's resolution to choose a replacement for Vare. Low Sargeroth was too deadly to warrant sending another member of the Church, Clovis argued in Moot, and the response by the Sargeroth Guard to Vare's murder was slow, dispassionate, and ineffectual. Gedric was unmoved by Clovis's claims, and refused to consider abandoning Low Sargeroth, believing it vital to the Church's identity that all districts be held to the same standards. Clovis did not react well to Gedric's dismissal, going so far as to label the Pontifex a "doddering old cobweb of an empty purse," in reference to both Gedric's age and his controversial bungling of the Church's finances. Infuriated, Gedric admonished Clovis in front of all the assembled Clerics, accusing him of unbridled arrogance, unchecked ambition, and unacceptable insularity. Clovis had been spoiled rotten and morally numbed, Gedric claimed, by his posh position as Cleric of the lavish Light District. In his dogged quest toward transforming the Floating Church into a moneymaking apparatus, Clovis had forgotten the empathetic draw to help his peers towards betterment. Speaking thus, Gedric brought silence to the room by next decreeing that Clovis was to be stripped of the Light District and transferred. In so doing, Gedric earned enmity from Clovis and his allies for the remaining five years of his tenure as Pontifex, and Low Sargeroth received its newest Cleric. DECLINE AND DEATH In the final five years of his twelve-year tenure as Pontifex, Gedric Thierry spent increasingly more time away from the Old Sanctuary. The aging Pontifex, now in his early sixties, preferred to conduct business outside, on the thoroughfares, among the throngs of people. He learned once again how to form connections and friendships with people beyond the Church, enjoying casual conversations with a loose network of friends whom he encountered over the course of his meanderings. For the duration of Gedric's tenure, a voting majority was stubbornly maintained by the elder Clerics, disdainful and distrustful of Clovis for his nigh-heretical ideas concerning the Church's future. A shift away from the current balance of power began with Gedric's own election, which resulted in the elevation of Schyal to replace Gallis Vare as the new Cleric of Old Sargeroth. Much to Gedric's displeasure, Schyal proved himself closer in ideology to Clovis than Gedric anticipated. With the support of Schyal, Clovis was shy a majority by a single vote. After the Second Discord, seeking to remedy the problem of Clovis's growing support within the Conclave, Gedric offered Schyal the Cleric of the Light District's office, vacated by Clovis's transfer to Low Sargeroth in lieu of the Gallis Vare murder. Gedric then went on to make one of the most controversial decisions of his tenure: replacing Schyal as the new Cleric of Old Sargeroth was the elderly Brother Osmole. THIRD DISCORD Osmole at that time was among the oldest members of the Church's entire clergy, old enough to remember Zwickel, and consequently a staunch believer in the Church's traditional function as a palliative to the spiritually hungry soul. Unwilling, or perhaps unable to comprehend how the Church could make money on its own, Osmole ridiculed Clovis's ideas, and was ridiculed in turn by the younger Clerics. The trading of jabs, prickly repartee, and subtle insults continued and slowly escalated over the course of the next five years, until culminating in the Autumn Moot of Gedric's twelfth year as Pontifex, otherwise known as the Third Discord. In Moot, Clovis took the debate floor and informed Gedric of food shortages. For decades, the Floating Granary produced enough bread to feed Zwickel's adherents, but with the Church's expansion came more mouths to feed, and the Granary was overstretched. Since the Church had no money, Clovis suggested acquiring land in Low Sargeroth, where unwanted and unused land cost nothing. Using that land, the Church could solve the food shortage by developing a supermarket as a pretext for planting additional fields of wheat. Osmole, teetering at the edge of senility, belched out his fervent belief in the absurdity of establishing a supermarket, and that Clovis should occupy his time less with money and more with meditation. Ignoring Osmole, Clovis directly accused Gedric of choosing a "dusty old sod" for Cleric simply because "that dusty old sod" was the only candidate "dusty and soddy" enough to continue supporting Gedric's refusal to ensure the Church's survival. In response, Gedric ordered Clovis to leave, and considered seeking his removal. Had Gedric acted on his impulse immediately, Sargerithian history would have taken a very different turn. Instead, Gedric decided not to act rashly. He resolved to remove Clovis from office in a month's time, at the upcoming Winter Moot, unless Clovis's conduct over the course of that month showed any sign of changing. THE QUICK CHANGE By the Winter Moot of Gedric's twelfth year as Pontifex, any opportunity Gedric may have had to remove Clovis was gone. First to go was Cleric Osmole, whose age finally caught up to him four years after the Third Discord, when he was found dead of a stopped heart on the streets of Cliffside. And then, several weeks later, scandal would strike the Church when the elderly Cleric Ungar was discovered naked and heavily intoxicated in a room with child prostitutes, compelling his resignation. The two vacant offices would be filled by the elevation of Brother Powell, replacing Osmole as the Cleric of Old Sargeroth, and Brother Ecbert, replacing Ungar as the Cleric of Cliffside. Clovis wasted no time meeting with the new Clerics. Much to his delight, neither Powell nor Ecbert needed convincing to see that entrepreneurialism was the Church's only way forward. When the Winter Moot arrived, Gedric knew his voting majority within the Conclave of Clerics had dissipated, and with it his power. Clovis, holding the voting majority, was not only safe from the threat of Gedric removing him from office, but now even possessed the power to block the passing of Pontifical Edicts. Recognizing defeat, Gedric did not move forward with an attempt to remove Clovis, lamenting in private how the rapidity of politics seldom allows for proper contemplation. After the Winter Moot passed with no action from Gedric, Clovis saw a potential path towards taking Gedric's office. He began holding private meetings with his majority of fellow reform-minded Clerics, and one by one he convinced them all to support a vote of no confidence in the Pontifex, which would be held on the upcoming Spring Moot. DEATH In the days leading up to the Spring Moot, Gedric had all but vanished from the public eye, absconding to his private quarters, where he demanded not to be disturbed. He spent his time meditating, reflecting on what he had accomplished so far, pondering what more he could do. When the Clerics convened for the Spring Moot, Gedric was absent. Clovis refused to call a vote of no confidence without Gedric present, so he sent acolytes to Gedric's quarters to investigate. The acolytes returned with news that the Pontifex was dead. Upon examining the body, a doctor would conclude that Gedric had died of a stopped heart, and that there were no traces of poison. LEGACY The tenure of Gedric Thierry as Second Pontifex of the Floating Church, it is widely agreed, held great potential which was never fully realized. Certainly if he had lived longer, his ideals may have taken deeper root. Gedric did not have a politician's mind, and he never quite learned how to quickly adapt to constantly shifting circumstances. His ideals and values were lauded as a breath of fresh air through Sargeroth's industrial haze, although his refusal to consider enabling the Church to make its own money would keep the Church from growing, and therefore prevent Gedric's policies and values from ever reaching greater crowds. Many historians nevertheless call Gedric Thierry the greatest humanitarian Sargeroth has ever known. None since Gedric have ever taken such a direct and effective approach toward ameliorating the harsh conditions endured by the city's poorest inhabitants. Clovis came close with his founding of the Brother Zwickel Memorial Supermarket, although he was hardly motivated by altruism. Much of Gedric's work in Low Sargeroth would be undone over the years, as new generations of Low Sargerithians grew more aggressive and restless. However, while Gedric's teachings on sanitation and spirituality would quickly vanish, Low Sargerithians still continue to make their own crude footwear.